Features - QOTW: Do you use an SSD in your main PC?

[roorooroo]

Yep, have one as a boot drive and looking for a larger games drive next.

[miniyazz]

Got one ages ago - a 60GB Core V1. Replaced it about a year when selling my system and switching to a laptop with an 80GB X25-M (HDD in the spare drive bay). Got frustrated with how slow my ultraportable laptop was and bought a 160GB X25-M. Sold my old laptop and got my shiny Dell L502X and couldn't live with the HDD, so bought a Crucial C300 256GB one in their epic sale ages 6+ months ago for <£185 and whacked the HDD in the DVD bay (who even uses those these days? ) and haven't looked back.. apart from the 4-5x I've swapped the HDD out with the DVD drive when I actually wanted to play games.

HDDs = dead to me as OS drives.

[sam3]

I have a crucial m4 and it is a very good ssd - but I wouldn't recommend getting a ssd unless you have the spare cash lying around.
Yes my boot/shutdown speed is faster and programs launch faster but not that much faster that I can justify spending £150 on one.
Most people would see more of a performacne boost by spending the cash on a better CPU or GPU (assuming you use your computing for gaming).

I use my pc primarily for gaming. I have a 128gb ssd so can fit a couple of games on it. Most multiplayer games you have to wait for the server to finish loading/changing level first anyway so theres no beneficial effect here. And for most single player games I only see around 2x faster loading speed (even though my read speed is 5 times higher than my previous hard drive) and to be honest most modern games dont have very long loading times anyway.

[NitrousX]

yes i use a SSD for my OS, i was'nt a earlt adopter as i heard so many issues with sandra controllers. So i opted to wait for intel to bring out their new cherryville 520 ssd im so happy with the performance and reliability and 5 years warranty with my ssd. I'm well chuffed xD

[rooophy]

Been using a 128Gb Vertex 2 for over a year now and couldn't imagine building another PC without one. It's that good!

[Mattus]

Yup, Crucial M4. Big difference in overall responsiveness. Would like to put one in my laptop, but where there's only one HD you can't get away with the smaller SSDs like you can in a desktop, and the big ones are still too expensive.

Most people would see more of a performacne boost by spending the cash on a better CPU or GPU.

Not necessarily... depends entirely what you use the computer for. Most tasks aren't that CPU-intensive with today's chips, and of course a new GPU will make no difference if you don't really play games. For most everyday Windows tasks it's hard to beat the feeling of general snappiness you get from an SSD.

[MSIC]

Got a 96GB cheap Kingston, it's ok although i wouldnt claim that it has revolutionised my experience beyond all reckoning.
Also Steam proved to be a bit of a bugger, defaulting to install to the C: drive without any easy options to change this (you can of course change the drive, but you have to tinker outside of the application).

[keithwalton]

Nope, haven't upgraded my main pc since before they hit the mainstream (build is 2006 and still going strong) not due to upgrade it any time soon either. New build I would use one as an os drive and if I could get a 1.8" one to fit my netbook (spend most of the time on this) then I would but I think it uses a custom zif connector

[HalloweenJack]

yes , have one as a games drive - after some aweful experiences with OCZ i would never touch those POS junk ever again

[sam3]

Not necessarily... depends entirely what you use the computer for. Most tasks aren't that CPU-intensive with today's chips, and of course a new GPU will make no difference if you don't really play games. For most everyday Windows tasks it's hard to beat the feeling of general snappiness you get from an SSD.

Sorry - I got used to speaking on gaming forums and assumed most people used their pc for gaming here

Spending an extra £100 or so on a GPU rather than an ssd will be much more beneficial for a gamer.

and most general everyday Windows tasks take very little time anyway (well on my computer they dont). We are talking shaving off ms here. I mean word 2010 only took around a second to launch on my mechanical drive and it now only takes 0.5s on a ssd. Was £150 worth that increase for speed
Not for me.

I guess I had a pretty fast system before hand and didnt really notice much of a change other than the faster boot/shutdown.

[Scribe]

Even if I stick to just installing applications on the SSD, Windows and my programs would push me to the limit and I'd lose my patience trying to manage my space, 256GB is still too expensive. Like the idea of a hybrid drive but not at 5900rpm and not with only 100GB of SSD.

[Andi-C]

Hell yes, had one of the first Intel's & it was marvelous ! Best upgrade money can buy if you have a platter HDD.

Now I have two 120gb vertex 3 in raid 0 & I love it but not as much as my 2500k...

[Lucio]

My PC is too old to have an SSD, but of course once I get around to a new one I'll get one for my Windows drive

[CampGareth]

Got plain old HDDs in my desktop and server, an SSD in my laptop. When the laptop outpaces my desktop for general light usage despite the desktop having about twice the clock speed I start seeing the benefits The laptop isn't even using its £90 64GB kingston drive to its full capacity since the laptop's limited to 100MB/s on the SATA ports. Got a secondary 250GB HDD in there too just for media.

Still can't justify the price tag of an SSD for my desktop, I'd want at least 256GB and that isn't cheap.

[DR]

All of the systems which I use - Home Server, HTPC, Work PC, Home PC, Laptop(s) all have SSD's in them, they are simply a must have.

[ed^chigliak]

Button monkeys and hamsters everywhere rejoice. SSD are worth the price for the reduced frustration. Clean installing windows then all the updates followed by a load of applications followed by a couple more rounds of updates takes a quarter the time. Windows shutdown & restart to complete installations doesn't have to eat up an entire day of your life. Installing from a fast USB pen drive to a 256 M4 is a 5 out of 5 star experience. If you value your time get one and if not stick with HDD which do the same thing but much slower. I currently have 3 SSD drives and need another 4.